The following description is provided to assist the understanding of the reader. None of the information provided or references cited is admitted to be prior art to the present technology.
Highly porous three-dimensional biodegradable composites are useful for tissue engineering scaffolds and drug delivery systems, among other things. Two key parameters in the design of this type of composite material are the size associated with the pores and their interconnectivity. A minimum size of about 10 μm is recommended to allow cell motion into the scaffold. Numerous methods have been proposed to produce suitable scaffolds from a variety of composite materials and include techniques that range from using nonwoven textiles to microfabrication. Some of the newest techniques have gained in sophistication and control, but they require highly specialized equipment and personnel. While progress has been made in producing composite materials for fabricating porous scaffolds, simple, current solutions ideally find a compromise between meeting the standards with respect to size and interconnectivity and ease and cost of production and, therefore, often fail to optimize either attribute. Therefore, it is desirable to pursue economical methods using conventional, readily available equipment which produces composites having well-defined pores of desired size and connectivity.